kibbitz said:
Don't remember the former, but for the latter, anywhere besides Fire Emblem?
Fire Emblem is enough.
The other one comes from Breath of Fire 3, actually, as a special type of Ryu's Warrior Dragon form.
Amusingly, I think Fire Emblem is a great proof of how it is so hard to come up with good names for different mundane fighting classes. The guys in heavy armor on the ground are called Knights, and they upgrade into Generals (including pot-bellied country bumpkins with no leadership skills). Mounted warriors are either called Cavaliers, or various variations of Knight (see how this gets confusing). They upgrade into Paladins. For lack of better terms, various characters get called Rangers (who leads an army), Mercenaries (who are just tough guys with swords), and Heroes (the classed-up Mercenary, who also uses an Axe, and only one of whom leads an army). I don't want to get into the mess of the Japanese versions, which contain amusing oddities as Armor Knights, Social Knights, Female Social Knights (different than the men), Shogun (who are medieval european grunts in plate mail), Forrests (some kind of sword user), Forrest Knights, Arch Knights (short for Archer), Duke Knights (Paladins who use axes), Barons (who are all capable of using every weapon and form of magic), Princes (who suck), Master Knights (Princes who now don't suck), Bishops, Dark Bishops, and a full set of Pegasus Riders, Pegasus Knights, and Pegasus Lords (who are not even nobles, often). Needless to say, it can be hard to find something that actually has a logical name.
rounser said:
Absolutely, I think one of D&D's biggest opportunities for making the game more fun is in developing models for playing the game outside of the dungeon environment. It's possible to run city and wilderness adventures, it's just that they're not as clear cut an environment to prepare for as a dungeon.
(A lot of historical problems with use of these environments stem from having no walls and too much space in the wilderness, and too many characters and buildings in urban environments. These make them difficult to model in D&D as an "adventure gameboard" in the same way a dungeon can be.)
But, that said, unless WOTC has pulled a rabbit out of the hat, I think it's safe to assume the status quo situation - that the dungeon is still the easiest D&D environment to model.
The warlord doesn't fit an adventuring party in either of those environments, either, though. In the wilderness, where's his or her army? In the city, where is it then? What the heck is this war-oriented, battlefield archetype doing with a bunch of (anti)heroic adventurers out seeking adventure?
A D&D party is not a mobile war or army, nor does it declare war unless it has an army handy. It may be able to take on entire armies singlehandedly at high level, but that's neither here nor there.
I think I will just say that I don't think wilderness or urban adventuring is any harder than dungeon adventuring, nor do I think it is any less common. Also, the movement to per-encounter balancing is already a huge step in making such battles easier for the DM, so I remain hopeful.
However, I don't really understand why you are bringing up the concept of an army. I don't think there is any reason to assume that a Warlord will need an army, or focus on that kind of thing any more than any other character. As far as I can guess, a warlord'c connection to any kind of army or kingdom is about as strong as the party's Cleric's conection to a religious congregation. In other words, there is room available for it in the mechanics and flavor, but it is not expected or necessary.
